Roadkill on Pocono roads: Free venison or worthless carcass?

Roadkilled deer are such a common sight in the Poconos that most residents simply ignore it.

CHRIS REBER

Roadkilled deer are such a common sight in the Poconos that most residents simply ignore it.

But a few adventurous venison eaters here see roadkill — fresh roadkill, anyway — as good meat that would simply go to waste.

"We've never been desperate for meat," Sheila Tice, of Sciota, said. "I just view it as being a practical person."

Most people would turn up their noses at roadkilled deer, but it's legal in at least 18 states — and common enough that Pennsylvania has its own permitting process.

"It's a free permit, but it's only available to Pennsylvania residents," said Tim Conway of the Pennsylvania Game Commission.

Tice has no problem preparing venison steaks, burgers and roasts for her family. And since none of them are hunters, she's happy to take roadkill that she knows is fresh enough to eat. A lightly damaged large deer can produce about 40 pounds of meat.

She says she's heard the critics. But she points out that venison is antibiotic- and hormone-free. If you're concerned about what your food is being fed, deer is about the most practical way to eat meat, she said.

"If it's properly butchered and frozen, it's better than the best beef. It's delicious," she said.

Conway said, personally, he agrees.

"A deer's a deer, a cow's a cow. It tastes the same to me," Conway said.

Like a gourmet chef at a farmers market, Tice has a discerning eye for her meat.

"You have to know it's fresh. You can't just pick any old thing off the road," she said.

If she's running errands and sees a fresh kill on the way home, she'll pick it up because she has a good idea of how long it's been there.

"If somebody doesn't hand it to you, you have to know it hasn't been there too long," she said.

Tice uses this subjective rule: If it's winter, the meat can't be too cold; if it's summer, it can't be too warm.

But she typically gets her deer from friends at church. She said she can only really take about one per year, though, because of limited space in her home freezer.

"We have had people call from church and say, 'Would you like a roadkill?'" she said. "But my freezer's too full."

State law allows all residents to collect deer, as long as they seek out a permit. Some might doubt that the Game Commission is keeping track of roadkill deer. But officials say it's an important issue because of the value of antlers and hides.

"We don't want people cutting the antlers off roadkill deer," Conway said. "They can be sold on the black market."

Commission officials say Pennsylvania residents are free to take any deer they find on the side of the road at their own risk. When a resident takes a roadkill deer, they're required to call the commission, and they're given a permit number over the phone.

Officers will ask the person to hold onto the antlers until they can pick them up. In some cases, the commission will sell them the antlers for $10 a point.

"If somebody is found with antlers, it can be handled two different ways: We can sell them the antlers, or it can be considered illegal possession of a deer," Conway said.

Violating that law can result in fines up to $5,000, he said.

Tice said officers take that law seriously. When she reports a deer, officers normally come to her house within a couple of weeks to follow up on the permit.

Tice also processes her own deer. She said her friends are often surprised about that, because she is typically afraid of blood.

"I really empathize with pain," Tice said.

But when an animal's dead, she puts that fear aside and knows it's dinner.

She processes the deer over the course of a day. Her technique involves just removing the edible sections of meat to avoid dealing with the deer's possibly traumatized insides. That's not a problem that hunters deal with, she said.

"Hunters know the deer has not been traumatized, other than the gun," she said.

Dan Martinell of Martinell's Deer Processing and Taxidermy said he doesn't have many people bring him roadkill deer. The trauma reduces the amount of meat that he can produce from an animal, but not the amount of work that goes into processing the deer.